This is what I use and I think are the most important tools I use to make my audio interview recordings. I use a simple Sony digital recorder. I probably got it six years ago from Circuit City, which is now closing here in San Diego. I paid, I think, $90. So it’s a Sony digital recorder. model no. it is stereo ICD-ST10. You can go to Ebay, do a search. You can go to Radio Shack. So you’re going to need something to record your audio digitally. Now there are other methods to do it. There are things that you can connect to your phone and to your computer, things that are much more complicated when you have two channels, big microphones and all that.

But I’m just using this simple little recorder. It takes two AAA batteries and the thing has only failed me once. Here is what I did. I recorded the interview and then to get the interview out of your recorder you need to plug your Sony into your computer’s USB port and then save the file to an MP3 file.

So you’re going to need something to capture your audio interview. You’re going to need the good old phone. I use a Radio Shack phone. I’ve probably had this for fifteen years and I’ll tell you, you want to try the phone that you have when you’re doing recordings because I had a problem with this phone, it was really creaky and I didn’t. I don’t know what it was, so I looked for new phones, I went to Wal-Mart.

You want to use a corded phone, you don’t want a cordless phone, and you don’t want a cell phone. I bought a corded phone from Radio Shack, one of the newer ones, and I bought one from Wal-Mart and then I tried the sound quality on them and it was definitely different than this one I use. So I’m in a small office some days and the main phone I use is usually at home so I unplugged my home phone and brought it here to my office because it has a different sound than my office phone.

So find a phone. Garage sales are a great place. I think if you go with the older ones, sometimes the older ones do a little better, but you can certainly find some old corded phones, if you don’t have a corded phone, on Craig’s List or eBay and play around with them. and try it.

So you’re going to need a phone. You’re going to need a digital recorder. You will also need this device to capture the recordings, I get it from Radio Shack and it will have the exact URL and resource page, but it plugs into your digital recorder and then plugs into the back of the phone. And this allows you to record both sides of the conversation, and it costs about twenty bucks. I looked it up yesterday, it’s only twenty bucks. And you’ll see exactly what I use to get the recordings out of the other end, so I can record it right then and there.

And then you have editing software if you want to edit it. You don’t have to edit your recordings. I like to edit them, but I use what I learned and what I feel comfortable with. It is a version of Gold Wave. If you go to Goldwav, I use their version 4.26. They have two or three new versions after that and it is very difficult to find version 4.26. But I am trained in it, it is very easy to work with him.

But that’s all you need, some equipment to record, capture and edit your audio. And soon you’ll be recording, producing, and editing audio interviews like a pro.